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Canadians stunned to learn they have police records, despite never being found guilty

The 27-year-old construction worker hoped that firefighting was a calling he would one day turn into a profession.

He was overjoyed when he earned a part-time spot at his hometown firefighting service in Caledon last April. After training for months on weekends and occasional week nights, Chris (who asked that we not publish his last name) was asked to provide a “vulnerable sector” police check in August.

The results left him stunned.

While the check itself indicated no charges or convictions, there was a letter attached.

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“It said I was named in a drug investigation,” he says. “I asked them what was going on because I had no idea. I’d never been talked to by police, pulled over or brought into a police station.”

It turns out a friend had been convicted on drug charges after being investigated by an undercover police officer. Chris had been out socially with his pal on three or four occasions when the undercover officer was with him.

“For me to be investigated, I understand, but to go on my record when I was hanging out with a group of people? My friend sold drugs. He’s an idiot. But I shouldn’t get penalized for what he did.”

Mark de Pelham, 34, says he lost two jobs in 2008 as a result of drug-related charges for which he was never convicted. (DAVID COOPER/TORONTO STAR)

Mark de Pelham

Mark de Pelham, a 34-year-old Torontonian who has twice run for a seat in federal parliament, says he lost two jobs in 2008 as a result of drug-related charges for which he was never convicted.

Afterward, he took allegations of discrimination — based on his “record of offences” — to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. The tribunal dismissed his complaint in 2009, ruling that the Human Rights Code protects Ontarians with “record of offences” from discrimination if they were convicted of an offence. It does not, the tribunal ruled, extend that protection to those who have been charged but not convicted.

De Pelham calls that “absurd.”

“Someone convicted beyond a reasonable doubt and later pardoned is protected and I’m not,” he says.

Things went swiftly downhill.

“I became fixated on the decision. It really precipitated an extended period of alcohol and drug use. It was rock bottom,” he says. “If nobody else is going to hire you, you’re going to be angry at society and you’re not going to care.”

Last year, he pleaded guilty to possession of an unauthorized firearm and was sentenced to six months in jail. He served two months before being released on parole.

Now, he is challenging the constitutionality of the province’s Human Rights Code in a civil action against the Attorney General of Ontario.

Stacey

Like most Canadians, Stacey (who asked that her last name not be published) never imagined that calls to 911 would show up on her police record. The Coquitlam, B.C., resident says “squabbles” with her sister and mother beginning in 2005 triggered four calls to 911.

She thought nothing of them until she applied for a volunteer dog-walking position in 2010. The facility asked for a background check.

While no criminal convictions appeared, the 911 calls did.

She was turned down. She says she has been stopped at the U.S. border several times and turned back. She suspects this is a result of the same records.

“They make you wait five hours in the office then they deny me access. It depends on who is at the border that day. If they pull me in, they always deny me.”

She has asked police to have the records expunged on the basis that they amount to health records and contain no criminal convictions.

“They replied by saying, ‘You do not have a record,’ and not to worry about it. Yet it has left me frozen and uncertain of what lay ahead,” she says. “It is preventing me from proper employment and re-entering society.”

Catherine

When Catherine (whose name and location is being withheld at her request) was studying nursing at an Ontario university two years ago, she was cracking the dean’s list and proving a natural at her chosen profession.

As part of the program, she underwent detailed police checks annually — all without incident.

Until 2012.

That year, a change in the police disclosure policy produced two incidents dating back to 2009 involving alleged “violent and aggressive” behaviour noted by police.

Both stemmed from mental health incidents she suffered following the end of a relationship, she and her parents say.

In both cases, after having too much to drink, she said she wanted to end her life. Neither incident was remotely “violent” nor “aggressive,” they say.

“I’d been going through a rough time when that had happened and I was just getting over it,” says the 25 year old. “I was just starting to make something of my life and contribute to society and they threw that at me. And I couldn’t even defend myself because it wasn’t a charge where I could have my say. It was an encounter and it was completely one sided. I was shocked.”

Asked why the information was suddenly being released, police officials told her they had changed their disclosure policy to include mental health issues.

“She was never charged with anything, but it could stick with her for the rest of her life,” says her father, who hired a lawyer to help clear her record.

The most vexing part, they say, is that if the police check had been conducted by a different force in another city, that same information would likely not have been included because of vast differences in policies from force to force, says her mother.

“It’s like a police state. It depends on where you are. You just don’t know if something is going to come up. You don’t know if you should call 911 because it could end up on their police check.”

The local police agreed to remove the mental health records following an appeal by the family’s lawyers, but said the decision could be changed at any time.

Catherine is now working as a nurse in Ontario.

“Most jobs require you to get an updated vulnerable-sector check every few years so it puts you in a position where you’re not really secure,” she says. “In my opinion, a vulnerable sector is looking for someone who is going to take advantage of vulnerable people and none of what I did would classify as someone who would do that.”

Ali

It was 2011 when Ali, then a 27-year-old Ottawa resident applying for airport security clearance, learned he had a police record that would end a promising career.

While he had never been charged or even sat in a police cruiser, he says the police backgrounder contained records of him being watched by police years earlier in the social-housing neighbourhood where he grew up.

“One time they said my motorcycle was parked outside a pizza shop. Another motorcycle there was registered to a convicted drug dealer,” he says. “Another time they said I was a passenger in a car with two persons of interest to the Ottawa police gang unit.”

Ali says he’s never been involved with drugs, has no charges or convictions and has had no direct contact with police.

“I grew up with these people since I was 9 years old. I don’t know whose doing what. I’ve lived my life, paid my taxes. And then they try to implicate me.”

He says he was forced to quit his job with Air Canada because of his failure to get airport security clearance. He now works in the Alberta oil patch. But the records continue to haunt him in his pursuit of other jobs and crossing the border to the U.S.

“Last year I was stopped,” he recalls. “It was surprising to hear the (U.S. border) officer say to me, ‘Stay away from drug dealers and gang members.’”

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